By Staff Writer: Caitlin Daugherty
Imagine a world where strep throat and urinary tract infections cannot be cured. Excruciating pain that can only be managed with pain killers and a dream. Picture a reality where food poisoning from bad chicken parmesan can end in sepsis. This can be humanity’s future if all bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, becoming superbugs.
The epidemic of bacterial resistance to antibiotics came to light a couple of decades after Alexander Fleming first developed penicillin. The overprescribing of antibiotics by doctors led to patients using high amounts of antibiotics for cases that didn’t even require them to begin with. Patients would often quit taking their medication because they feel better, completely ignoring their doctor’s advice and stopping their cycle of pills before it’s done. The bacteria that aren’t killed by the antibiotic become resistant to the medicine and breed a new generation of bacteria that is resistant to the medication.
Superbugs, or antibiotic resistant bacteria, are a major problem in today’s society. Tuberculosis, one of the deadliest diseases in human history, has multiple strains that are resistant to almost every medication on the market. This causes massive issues to both pharmacies and healthcare providers. It is much more expensive for those that have MDR (Multiple Drug Resistant) Tuberculosis to get treatment, causing most people to abandon their treatment altogether. Those that contract Tuberculosis have to go through six months of pill regimens that they might forget or not want to go through with all the way. This leads to stronger and deadlier forms of the disease.
However, it is not too late for the eradication of these super bugs as a new solution is in development. Bacteriophages are specialized viruses that infect and kill bacteria. These tiny
Allies can assist us in the war against superbugs and make it so that we never have to suffer through the nightmare that is a never-ending stomach bug.